Contents

The panels

The New World Tapestry, which in its entirety measures 267 ft × 4 ft (81.4 m × 1.2 m), consists of twenty-four panels,[2][3] each of which depicts the narrative of a particular phase in the period between 1583 and 1642.

Each panel measures 11 ft × 4 ft (3.4 m × 1.2 m).

The figures of the tapestry are rendered in an unmistakably modern, cartoon-like style, but it also follows in the tradition of Tudor and Jacobeancanvas work embroidery. The panels are worked in gobelin stitch which entirely covers the ground, and along with pictures of the main scenes of the story, the panels also feature birds, animals, flowers and insects all beautifully worked in bold colours.

The creation of the tapestry

The designer was Tom Mor,[5] who also designed the Plymouth Tapestry at Prysten House,[6]Plymouth, the Adventurers for Virginia (London) Tapestry,[5][7] and was the consultant on the Jersey Liberation Tapestry (St Helier, Channel Islands) and the Plympton Tapestry (Plympton, Devon). The panel was researched by Tom Mor, Tom Maddock, Paul Presswell and Freda Simpson. Chief tapissiers were Joan Roncarelli and Renée Harvey. A New World Tapestry Website has been developed as of December 2008 and will soon include 120 pages, showing all complete panels.[8]

Research for the New World Tapestry's twenty-four panels began in 1980. Tom Mor was joined by Tom Maddock, a retired friend from Ivybridge. Over the months they travelled hundreds of miles together, researching the two hundred sixty four people who would be named on the tapestry. Heraldic expert Paul Presswell of Buckfastleigh identified all the coats of arms of the people, colleges and companies involved. The result has been the creation alongside the tapestry of a library of files on each person and a collection of reference books of great use to researchers, scholars and teachers.[5]

Two hundred sixty four armorial shields run along the top and bottom tapestry borders throughout its length, alternating with illustrations of the same number of flowers of herbs, medicinal plants, trees and shrubs. The latter are shown because the colonists took ointments and cure-alls with them on their voyages and plant hunters returned with such things as the potato and tobacco.

All the flowers and florets depicted were drawn from nature by Tom Mor, who studied them under a watchmaker's glass. He was helped from the very early days by Freda Simpson of Plymouth, who was passionately interested in herbs and old herbal remedies. She identified and gave him over 230 flower specimens in the years that Mor lived with his wife and family in Plymouth. Later they moved to Cambridge where he was able to complete the set of 264 drawings with the help of Clive King and Caroline Lawes of the Cambridge University Botanic Garden, Lady Jane Renfrew of Lucy Cavendish College and Alison Davies, Monica Stokes and Edna Norman.

The stitchers

Tom Mor could not have seen his canvasses brought to life without the help of his friends and the expertise of the dedicated tapissiers. When the very first stitch was made in the New World Tapestry in 1980, the team working in Prysten House numbered twenty. By the time the last stitch was made in March 2000, the number of tapissiers had increased to two hundred fifty-six with the addition of another eight centres. In Devon there was a second in Plymouth at HMS Drake (the Royal Navy's panel), Ivybridge, Chillington, Exeter, Bideford, Totnes and Tiverton Castle. Dorset's Tapestry centre was in the Guildhall at Lyme Regis and it was there that the Great Gardeners and Herbalists panel was stitched.

The last oblique Gobelin stitch was made by HRH The Prince of Wales[5] on 3 March 2000 in the Orchard Room of his home at Highgrove House in Gloucestershire. Most fittingly, with his interest in history and a keen gardener himself, the Prince put his golden wool stitch in the date of the 1642 Great Gardeners and Herbalists' Panel.

Racism controversy

In 2017, representatives of the National Congress of American Indians, who had previously been unaware of the tapestry project, issued statements to the effect that the final product was racist in its depiction of Native American people.[9] "It shamelessly perpetuates a centuries-long artistic tradition that seeks to portray Native people as subhuman, warlike savages,” according to Jacqueline Pata, the executive director of National Congress of American Indians.[10]

"What I wanted to avoid was the picture of English people coming ashore from their galleon to the New World as peaceful and quiet. It wasn’t so," Mor told The Telegraph. "It's no use pretending about it or being shocked by it. Mine is a cartoon, but it is a reality. I tell it as it is and I tell it with humour."[10]

The Library

The New World Tapestry Library[5] material includes histories of the years 1583-1642, much of it original research, files on the two hundred sixty four people named on the tapestry, plus heraldic information on over three hundred individuals, companies, towns, counties and universities.

Supporters

Supporters of the New World Tapestry include the Adventurers for Virginia[11] patrons of the New World Tapestry and Library. Their names are inscribed for posterity in the Adventurers for Virginia Record Book. Supporters who join the Adventurers for Virginia may also:

^"New World Anniversary Tapestry in Bristol, July 2006". VisitBritain Press Centre. More than 260 adventurers are named in total and their coats-of-arms displayed, along with a similar number of herbs, medicinal plants, trees and shrubs used by the early settlers. There are several humorous touches in the manner of ancient tapestries and almost 39 million stitches, including one made by Prince Charles.

^ abcde"City marks 400th anniversary of England's American adventure". City of London media centre. 4 April 2006. Archived from the original on 18 June 2006. Today's Adventurers for Virginia are also backers of England's 'Bayeux' Tapestry, The New World Tapestry, which, together with its Library, is a unique source of Anglo-American historical reference and an important international teaching tool. Designed by Tom Mor in 1978 and stitched by 256 volunteer Westcountry tapissiers, the massive work was completed in 2000 with a stitch made by Prince Charles.

^"Cash appeal for tapestry casing". BBC News. 13 May 2002. Mr Mor has created a fund-raising group called Adventurers for Virginia, which will work on both sides of the Atlantic. The group takes its name from a tapestry panel, specially created for the fund-raising drive, which was made by a group of volunteers in Lyme Regis, Dorset. The panel is dedicated to the work of 18 London livery companies that, in 1620, gave money to support settlements in Virginia.